The present invention is generally related to the field of media delivery to mobile computing devices such as smart phones and similar intelligent endpoint devices.
The current state of the art for delivering media to mobile devices has been limited to the linear offerings such as “MobiTV” from Telco service providers through their walled gardens. Access to these services are limited to paid subscribers and the choices of media is limited to what is being offered on the channels at a particular time. In other words, there is no notion of on-demand viewing. Furthermore, the cost of deployment is prohibitive because of the need to use specialized single-purpose hardware. Other services such as “Orb” require the use of specialized players that are hard to install on mobile devices. Yet another kind of offering is a media search that provides a low-quality catchall type of service of media clips that caters to the lowest common denominator of phones.
Media sharing is achieved primarily via email as attachments. The problem with this approach is that it subjected to length restrictions by the device and service providers. In addition, there is no guarantee that the media will render well enough to play on a particular phone.